Owing to the contemporary nature of Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS), the art directed at its rating and billing remains very much in its infancy, and in particular to real-time solutions developed in this regard. Consider US Patent Application No. 20010053687 by Sivula, entitled Method for addressing billing in a message service, messaging service system, server and terminal discloses art related to a method for addressing billing in a multimedia messaging service applying store-and-automatic forward messaging. However, the application by Sivula concerns a zero charge for the retrieval of a MMS message to a destination number. Sivula's application does not intimate or cover the rating and charging of the origination of a MMS message by a wireless subscriber, which remains a principal crux of our invention of present.
References Cited:
U.S. Patent Application20010053687December, 2001Sivula455/412